


The Birth of Something New

by Morning66



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Birth, F/M, Gen, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25922089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66
Summary: On the day his daughter is born, Hikaru realizes he’s in love twice. Neither time is with his wife.
Relationships: Fujisaki Akari/Shindou Hikaru, Shindou Hikaru/Touya Akira
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	The Birth of Something New

**Author's Note:**

> So this is kinda weird okay???? So idk
> 
> Hope you guys like it anyway, though!! :)
> 
> Also, there’s mentions of like complications with labor/birth stuff. It all works out fine for all involved parties and nothing is described in detail, but just in case that bothers anybody because I know people have had all sorts of experiences

On the day his daughter is born, Hikaru realizes he is in love twice.

Akari’s not due for two weeks yet, so when Hikaru leaves her at home to go to that day’s game he doesn’t feel too guilty. She kisses him on the cheek before he leaves, hobbling over, large and awkward with child. Her lip press cool and sticky against his cheek and he hates it.

“Love you, honey,” She says sweetly, her voice still girlish despite all the years that have passed.

“Yeah,” Hikaru says and realizes a little too late that he should probably have told it to her back. 

Outside, as he hurries to the bright yellow car he bought with the earnings from his first title, he wipes her lipstick off his cheek, his fingers coming away red and glistening. It’s gross, he thinks sadly, as he smears the rest on the passenger seat of the car.

If he’d known that today was the day, he wouldn’t have gone. Hikaru might not be the best husband to ever exist, but he wouldn’t leave his wife alone purposefully on the day she was going to give birth. Instead, he drives to work, a little too fast, because he can’t be late, not today, not when he’s playing Touya.

Akari walks to Hikaru’s parents (they live close, because she had insisted, and he hadn’t cared, not when it was pretty close to the Go Association) and she drinks herbal tea and chats with Mitsuko, quiet words in an otherwise empty house. The tea is dark and bitter, but her mother-in-law insists that it helps the baby come easily when the time comes, that it made having Hikaru easy, even if everything after the actual birth wasn’t. 

Maybe the tea works too well because by eleven she’s already rushing to the hospital with contractions.

While Hikaru takes a seat across from Touya, both sitting formally, seiza style, Mitsuko drives Akari to the hospital, wrinkled fingers tight on the steering wheel, offering comforting words here and there. While they nigri (Touya wins black and Hikaru settles for white) Akari rushes into the hospital emergency room, the baby on the way.

Sitting across from Touya, Hikaru is reminded of how long they’ve know each other. They’re both twenty four now, twenty four even though he still has his bangs dyed and Touya still wears that stupid pageboy cut, though it’s a bit longer now. Twenty four, which means they’ve known each other half their lives and if Hikaru learned anything in middle school math (debatable), he knows that that half will stretch into higher and higher percentages, a minuscule sliver left that they haven’t spent together.

It has the makings of a good game, not their best, but good for them and amazing for anyone else. They’re reaching mid game when Shinoda interrupts and leads Hikaru out into the hall. Touya follows and Hikaru’s once upon a time teacher eyes him, but Hikaru nods. Touya knows him better then anybody, had seen him laid bare and naked, every card thrown on the table face up last year when he told him about Sai. If the other man can hear that, he can hear anything.

“Your wife’s in labor,” Shinoda says, quiet and urgent in the empty hallway and for a moment the world stands still, before it bounces back, quicker and brighter and louder than before.

In a frenzy, Hikaru grabs his things and slips back into his street shoes. Touya marks a win on the chart, a win by forfeit. One for one, Hikaru notes, thinking of the long ago day when Touya’s father was taken to the hospital.

“We’ll finish it later,” Touya assures him placatingly as he fumbles with the zipper on his coat. “Don’t worry.”

Hikaru wasn’t worried, but he nods all the same. How could he be worried? His rivalry with Touya isn’t about records or dan levels, it never has been. In their minds, this game won’t be a forfeit, it’ll be a battle they’ll delay until later, then see who really wins.

Hikaru heads for the elevator, then turns around. “C’mon!”

Touya tilts his head to the side, looking perplexed like he is by any sort of social interaction, Hikaru thinks.

“Don’t be stupid. I need someone to make sure I don’t crash my car into a tree.”

The look on Tooya’s face is agreement laced with a hidden fondness and not for the first time Hikaru wonders if Touya knows him too well.

Touya drives, and Hikaru sits in the passenger seat, nervously tapping his fingers on the door.

“Stop that,” Touya snaps and Hikaru sticks out his tongue at his friend and taps them louder. He’s pretty sure that Touya’s knows he stressed and is just bickering with him to calm him down and for that he’s grateful.

It takes him ten minutes to actually find the maternity ward in the hospital because of his atrociously bad sense of direction and another five minutes to get a nurse to tell them where exactly his wife is. Once he does locate the room, a serious looking doctor stops him with a palm. 

“Are you the father?”

Hikaru nods his head. “She’s my wife.”

The man nods seriously. “There are some issues with the labor. It would probably be better if you waited outside for now, sir.”

Alarm bells go off in Hikaru’s head. “Is everything okay?”

The doctor sighs. “It probably will be, but right now...it would be better not to have any interruptions,” He finishes.

In a little bit, another doctor comes out and explains more about Akari’s condition, using words that Hikaru would probably have known had he actually read any of the baby books Akari purchased. (“They didn’t have pictures,” He’d whined to her. “How was I supposed to understand them?”)

Hikaru paces in the hallway, feet tracing an invisible rut into the linoleum that’s scuffed from millions of other people pacing on it. Finally when Touya gets tired of it, he hears him say his name.

“Shindou!”

Hikaru looks at his friend and Touya reaches up and places a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Hikaru,” He says.

His voice is firm and resolute, but all Hikaru can think of is that Touya just called him by his given name. Hikaru, Hikaru, Hikaru. He hears it echoing in his head.

The walls are white and cool and sterile and Touya’s hand presses into Hikaru’s shoulder blades, hot and burning. Two floors up from this, Ogata pushed Hikaru hard into a wall when he was only a teenager, demanding answers about Sai that he couldn’t give. Now, Hikaru wishes out of nowhere that it had been Touya doing the pinning to the wall, long, elegant fingers holding Hikaru’s shoulders in place, beautiful dark hair falling in front of bright, dark eyes.

What?

Hikaru decides in that moment that he’s probably screwed, probably very screwed because he is married to a woman, a very nice, beautiful woman who’s currently doing her best to give birth to their daughter and he’s thinking about his best male friend and eternal rival in a way that is definitely not platonic.

He probably should have caught on sooner, but he never has been particularly perceptive towards feelings, not when he was thirteen and Sai was trying to hint about Akari and definitely not now. God, he wishes Sai were here because if he was then Hikaru could ask him what’s going on and maybe Sai could tell him. Could tell him why his wife is giving birth and all he can think of is Touya Akira.

In a wave of panic, Hikaru pushes Touya’s hand off his shoulder and steps away, bawking like an upset chicken and a flash of hurt crosses Touya’s face. Hikaru wonders in that moment if the other man feels the same, if he senses the thing between them that isn’t a goban, the thing that Hikaru is just now catching on to. He doesn’t know how to ask.

Instead, he just apologizes to Touya and starts to pace again, more furiously this time.

Akari made it through the labor okay and so did their daughter, a nurse tells him soon.

“We were worried for a little bit there, sir, but it all went just fine,” A fresh faced doctor explains to him as he leads him to their room. 

Then, the door is opening and there’s Akari cradling something in her arms, face smeared with the remnants of sweat, but glowing all the same. When she sees him she smiles, bright and beautiful, and something twists in Hikaru’s gut remembering what he was thinking about minutes ago in the hallway.

Akari hand him his daughter and he stares down at the little girl swaddled in a blanket, awake and bright eyed. This is his daughter, he thinks reverently and can’t believe the rush of love that fills up his chest. She’ll grow and he’ll raise her, teach her to talk and read and play go, of course she’ll play go and he can’t wait.

His daughter is nestled in his arms, beautiful eyes looking up at him curiously. He loves her and he loves the women in the bed in front of him, the woman who was a child with him, who’s known him all his life. He loves the man in the doorway, peeking in anxiously, hesitantly in a way he never is in a game, but always is outside of it.

He loves them all, but he doesn’t love Akari enough and he loves Touya too much.


End file.
